


Hypnopompia

by holyfant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hermione Granger-centric, Mentions of Pregnancy, POC Hermione, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 14:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6808216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hypnopompia (noun): the state of consciousness leading out of sleep.</p><p>Hermione wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hypnopompia

Waking up to rain tapping on the skylight window after the summer haze of the past days is like waking from a bright fever dream into a muted world. Hermione blinks, momentarily overtaken by the strangeness of the light; for a second she thinks it must still be night, but then her senses catch up. She reaches out to find Ron's side of the bed empty; it takes her a few moments to remember that he's in London for the yearly Auror team building weekend. Ron's never quite told her what they actually _do_ there. Harry has, more boyishly excited than Ron about the idea of being included in a tight team, its somehow _male_ camaraderie, rooted in sweat and physicality – never mind the fact that the department had its largest number of female recruits in the year Harry and Ron joined up. She and Ron and Harry have been – are, still, in some ways – a team, but it's clear Harry and Ron enjoy the rough friendships in the Auror department. She should disapprove of the amount of Firewhiskey building a team apparently requires, but as she stretches against the covers – cool where she hasn't touched them in her sleep – she can't quite be bothered. It's slightly odd to not have Ron there, a little thing that chafes against her feeling of normality, adding to the sensation that she's spent the last several days in a haze that's finally rolled back to reveal things she didn't know were there. Still, she knows she enjoys being apart from him now and then: it reminds her that she doesn't feel quite right without him. Ron's the sort of person who fills a room to bursting. You can't miss him, because he's always so _there_. Now that he's not, the feeling of chosen solitude fills her with a slow, almost-pleasant sadness. She becomes aware, gradually, that she doesn't feel nauseous this morning. Slowness is the ticket; she's learned that already.

 

It's good, perhaps, to not have Ron here for once fussing over her. He always manages to make it that little bit worse, trying to help when she feels like she's going to be sick. She smiles fondly at the thought. Her mum used to say it was important to have time apart as a couple; she'd take time off from the dental practice while dad worked on. Apart from their two weeks of family holidays when they'd go to the coast or, later on, to France, Hermione's parents almost never matched their days off to each other. Mum said they saw more than enough of each other at work. Hermione thinks she understands this better now than she did as a child, and she's very glad that Ron and she don't move in the same circles at the Ministry. There is only so much Ron – and Harry, really – she can take in one day. Ron, bless him, had said that if she wanted him to, he'd Apparate back from London for the night. He tries to be more aware of her moods, especially now, but he gets it endearingly wrong at times, and this was one of them. She told him she would be infinitely happier not knowing the state he'd be in by evening.

 

The patch of sky she can see through the window is a uniform light grey; the rain against the glass intermittent, light. There is residual, sultry heat from the previous evening in the room; she's sweating lightly under its sticky-velvet feel, even though she's lying on top of the covers. She should have opened the window before going to bed, but the Mosquito Barrier charm is the only one, for some reason, that she regularly messes up – and at the moment, the Muggle anti-Mosquito sprays her Mum always used are out. For the moment, the slight discomfort of the heat isn't bad enough to motivate her to get out of bed and open the window. She thinks, with an uncharacteristic absence of anxiety, about the emptiness of the day that lies ahead of her. She has a report to finish on the birth registration issues in the current laws for House Elves – Halle will be expecting that by Monday morning. Plenty of time. She'll drop in at Arthur and Molly's to take a look at the cot they want her to have; she knows she'll be able to fix it if necessary, and the gesture is moving enough. Perhaps she can message Ginny to come over to her parents' too, so they can spend some time together.

 

With a little twinge of guilt she thinks of the two telephone messages her Mum had left, gently admonishing her for having stayed away for weeks, and reminding her of Dad's impending trip to Nigeria, and wouldn't it be good to have at least another dinner together before he left? This, too, is a memory: her father sometimes taking three weeks off work to visit his family back home while Hermione and her mother stayed in the UK, Mum steadily continuing work at the practice. Hermione was curious about Nigeria as a child, read about it, looked at Dad's pictures of his family there. Often she'd hold her arm against his: his stringy and muscled, hers softer in both flesh and colour, muted to his bold black. His arms were hairless; this she always liked. He never told her much about Nigeria, except that he'd had a sister with hair just like hers. Hermione learned from her mother that this sister – her aunt – had died in a bus accident before her father made the long journey to the UK to collect on a scholarship he'd qualified for by consistently excellent performance at school. He was going to be a dentist in a nation of bad teeth: a golden future. Hermione sometimes imagines, now that she's the age he was when he arrived, her father: young, brimming with enthusiasm, talented, deeply unprepared for the hostility he'd find. The UK hadn't managed defeat him, this black man with a dream of being a doctor: he'd become one, and put in all of the hours, and more, far more. Still, her mother sometimes told Hermione stories from their university days that sounded like they were about a different man. Her father had sometimes said that when she was old enough, he'd take her to visit her grandmother and cousins. But then the Hogwarts letter had come, and that had changed so much.

 

She turns over, pressing her cheek to a cool patch in the sheets. The slow, easy calm she'd woken up with is evaporating and she feels a familiar twinge of early-morning stress. These days she often dreams of her parents: the sign of her own impending motherhood, perhaps? She really should talk to them more. She resolves to give her mother a ring later today, and arrange to have dinner.

 

The light beading of sweat at her hairline pools into a larger drop and begins to inch its way down her brow, ticklish and slow. She wipes it away, impatient now, and sits up – too fast, inviting a wave of nausea that she simply has to undergo, hand pressed to her mouth. When it fades, she reaches for the crackers on the nightstand and eats one, carefully. Her stomach seems to accept the offering, so she cautiously gets to her knees, holding the slight swell of the child as if that will placate it. Reaching up, she turns the handle on the skylight and tilts it open. Clear, rain-cooled air streams into the hot bedroom. For a long moment, she simply sits there with her eyes closed, hands on her belly, face turned towards the light rain misting over her.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little exercise to practice a Hermione voice. Not beta'ed, so feel free to point out any typos or errors. <3


End file.
